House Minority Leader John Boehner has a response for those who have criticized him for comparing the financial crisis to an ant: “They’re the ones who are out of touch with what the American people expect.”
Boehner had said in an interview earlier this week that passing the financial reform bill would be like “killing an ant with a nuclear weapon.” President Obama tore into Boehner today, mockingly wondering during a Wisconsin town hall, “Do you think the financial crisis was an ant and we just need an ant-swatter to fix this thing?”
In an interview with The Washington Post, Boehner responded to Obama, calling the White House “out of touch” because “the American people want us to deal with the economy and jobs. And what have they dealt with? They’ve dealt with health care. They’ve dealt with cap and trade.”
He added: “And then they’ve gone overboard with financial regulatory bill. Growing the size of government, taking more from the American people at a time when Americans want them to focus in on the economy.”
Boehner also explained his “ant” comment, saying it
was not a judgment of the financial crisis. It was how to fix it. Clearly there were holes in our regulatory process and we could have fixed those holes but that’s not what this bill does. This bill goes way beyond all of that and puts the federal government in a huge role in terms of how our whole financial system’s going to work in the future. That’s what I was talking about.
He continued: “This is what America is saying,” and “there’s frustration that Washington’s not listening.”
Jillian Rayfield
Jillian Rayfield is a Reporter/Blogger for TPM, and started as a News Intern in May 2009. She graduated from Cornell University in May 2008 with a degree in Film, and worked as a Research Assistant for a market research firm in London in between.
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